Resources: Archives — Past meetings · 2003

(Past Meetings: 2004 2003 2002)

Wednesday, October 15, 2003, 11:30 AM

Product Planning: Bridging the Planning Divide

Venue: Sun Microsystems, Newark, California

Time: 11:30am to 1:30pm
Costs:
Pre-registration: $20 for national PDMA members and $30 for nonmembers.
Walk-in registration: $25 for national PDMA members and $35 for nonmembers.
Lunch will be provided.

Presentation Details:

Today’s economy requires nothing less than clinical execution when planning and executing market strategies. In meeting this challenge head-on, companies must replace gut feel, hallway discussion, and spreadsheets with robust product planning processes and solutions. Only with the right processes, tools and market intelligence in place can companies confidently align corporate planning and strategic market planning with more tactical product and release planning. And in doing so bridge the gap between strategic and tactical thinking…resulting in products that succeed in the marketplace and support a company’s overall corporate goals and objectives.

Eric Finch (Director, PRTM) has extensive experience working with some of today’s most innovative high-technology companies. Dr. Finch will offer ideas for effective implementation of strategic and tactical product planning.

Paul Clenahan (VP Product Management, Actuate Corporation) will examine how Actuate has addressed the need for product planning excellence with a combination of process improvements and enabling technology.

Presenters:

Paul Clenahan, Vice President of Product Management, Actuate Corporation
http://www.actuate.com

The world leader in scalable Business Intelligence Applications, Actuate provides an Information Application Platform on which large organizations and packaged application software vendors create reporting and analytics applications. These scale to empower 100 percent of their user community inside and outside the firewall. Actuate has over 2,100 direct customers and 300 OEM partners in a range of industries including financial services, pharmaceuticals, insurance, and distribution services, as well as the government sector. Actuate Product Management, a group within Engineering, coordinates overall product direction and vision for Actuate based on emerging technology trends, market demands, customer feedback and internal innovation.

Paul joined Actuate in 1997 and has over 15 years experience in the Business Intelligence technology sector. Prior to joining Actuate, Paul held several positions at Information Builders in New York, including Director of WebFOCUS Product Management. Paul holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science from Edinburgh University, Scotland.

Eric Finch Ph.D., Director, PRTM
http://www.prtm.com

PRTM is the leading management consultancy to technology-based companies. Dr. Finch has held positions in software development and management for the last 18 years, and has helped found two software companies. After earning a doctorate in artificial intelligence at MIT, he spent 5 years at Gensym Corporation, pioneering development of expert system and neural network based manufacturing execution systems. he also holds an MBA degree from Duke University. At PRTM, he has worked with numerous software clients, ranging from Fortune 100 companies to Internet startups. He specializes in helping these companies reduce time-to-market, increase product quality, and successfully plan, manage and launch software products. Dr. Finch is based in PRTM’s Mountain View office.